Welfare Reform Team Evaluation of European Social Fund pilot project 2014-2015

Respondent
Name
ESFP10
ESFP11
ESFP12
ESPF13
ESFP13
ESFP16
Respondent
Email
Address
User's Response: Free-Text (formatted)
We haven’t identified any challenges with working with the Welfare
Reform Team.
Duplication may be an issue, ie of benefit advice/DHP etc. Also clients
may have support workers from other organisations. Can be confusing
for client to know who to go to – Welfare Reform Team, Advice
Agency, Connections FS for example.
We supplied members of staff from JCP twice a week to work in the
Welfare Reform Team. This was to build relationships and share ways
of working. We agreed, in return, to have a member of staff from the
Welfare reform team working in our office a couple of days a week.
Unfortunately this did not happen. This was really disappointing as we
wanted them to come in and work with us to build continuing
relationships.
We appreciate you help people to find work to avoid the benefit cap.
When families find 16hours work, the impact on Home Choice is that
these families then become exempt from possible offers of
accommodation outside of Oxford resulting in longer waits in
temporary accommodation as properties within Oxford are declining
over time.
There is no real solution that we can think of other that trying for full
time work to widen ability to access housing over a wider area as
families could possibly afford to commute.
There is no question about good things from working with the WRT that
need to continue so I would like to say the following:
• The liaison meetings have re-started and are going very well. We hope
for much better working relationship and information sharing
• The reverse shadowing was very successful and hopes are to get new
staff to do it soon
• The WRT always seem happy to help answer questions we have
thrown at them from Home Choice and we are very grateful for this.
Keeping up with benefit changes can be a challenge , especially given
that we do not primarily work with benefit claimants , our client base is
vulnerable tenants with complex issues some of who are affected by
benefit changes. So making information on any changes in benefits &
training to make our team understand the changes could be investigated.
I feel both parties need to take responsibility for better partnership
working, both teams are under a lot of stress and pressure, whoever it
would be useful if we have a proper briefing on the individuals that we
take on at EMBS. In addition if a member of staff can meet with our
point of contact periodically to request updates on any learners your
team is working on, and to provide us with updates.
Response
Creation
Date (dd
mmm
yyyy)
19 Oct
2015
19 Oct
2015
19 Oct
2015
19 Oct
2015
19 Oct
2015
20 Oct
2015
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